


suppressed devotion

by cori_the_bloody



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: 5 Times, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, a happier season 5, for bethany
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-22
Updated: 2017-03-22
Packaged: 2018-10-09 02:58:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10402251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cori_the_bloody/pseuds/cori_the_bloody
Summary: 5 times Jeff inadvertently and indirectly tells Annie he loves her and the 1 time he does it and means to(a Jeff/Annie-centric season 5 AU)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bethanyactually](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bethanyactually/gifts).



> **Word Count:** 5,360  
>  **Author's Note:** Thank you a million times to Bethany for her beta skills, but, more importantly, for her friendship. much like Jeff is grateful and feels lucky to have Annie in his life, I owe the universe a lot for bringing us together. Your graciousness and kindness knows no bounds. Thanks for sending a little my way.  <3

It was Britta’s idea, going to her bar to celebrate his first successful week of teaching. While it’d sounded like a good idea at the time—he’s not exactly one to turn down an excuse to drink, especially not lately—shortly after they settle into a sticky booth with pitchers full of beer, Jeff realizes that he’s simply not in the mood.

So he orders a glass of scotch and slips outside as soon as the rest of them start up a game of pool.

He’s almost done with the drink by the time anyone comes looking.

“Hey,” Annie says quietly as she approaches. 

He jerks to attention at the sound of her voice, on edge and fuzzy-brained. “What the hell, Annie?”

“You’d been out here for a while. I wanted to make sure you’re okay,” she says, shaking her head and leaning against the brick exterior of the bar. She’s holding a mostly-empty water bottle by the cap, pinching the plastic between her thumb and forefinger, and her arm brushes up against his elbow as she settles next to him.

“Well I’m fine,” he says curtly, trying not to notice the charming way the tops of her ears turn pink at his tone or the lock of hair that’s slipping out of her otherwise immaculate updo. And he especially doesn’t take note of the way his fingertips twitch with the urge to brush the strand back into its place.

“Fine, then.” Her voice is clipped, her tone offended.

“Wait,” he calls when she turns to leave. “I didn’t mean to…it’s been a long week.”

She hesitates before coming to rest against the building next to him again. In the following silence, Jeff feels the weight of her expectancy.

“I’ve been a little stressed,” he admits finally. “About life stuff.”

“I thought you said you might like teaching,” she says, kind but confused.

“It’s not about the teaching—especially now that you’ve dropped my class.”

She tilts her head up toward him and smiles wryly. “I was just being difficult for your own good.”

“And all those other times you were difficult? That was just for the thrill of it?” he teases.

She chuckles, nudging him with her shoulder, and he ducks his head to smile at his shoes. 

They both relax for a moment before Annie asks, “What _is_ it about, then?” .

Jeff swallows hard, and knows she must sense his discomfort because she n rests a hand gently on his arm and gives him an out.

“We don’t have to talk about it.”

After tipping back his remaining scotch, he says, “It’s not that I’m _trying_ to brood or anything. I just don’t think I can articulate what’s bothering me.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” Annie says, her voice teasing and deliberately light. “Jeff Winger is one eloquent bastard.”

It’s a stupid comment and he doesn’t want to laugh at it, but he can’t seem to help it. “I’ve certainly been called worse.”

They stand in silence for several comfortable moments. Then, apropos of nothing, Annie says, “It’s strange, right? Having the gang back together.”

Jeff’s pulse jumps, but he doesn’t say anything, waits for her to elaborate.

She doesn’t let him down. “I mean, I have this constant pit of guilt in my stomach, being reunited with everyone, because we should have never fallen out of touch in the first place, you know? It feels weird that it doesn’t feel weirder.”

He feels relief swell in his chest and angles his body toward her, the edge of a brick cutting into his shoulder. “I know exactly what you mean.”

Her face softens into a grateful grin and a familiar bright sensation unfurls in his chest.

“I was sorry to hear about your law firm,” she says, her mouth twisting down in a thoughtful little frown. “I was rooting for you.”

He offers her a half-hearted smile and a derisive, “At least that makes one of us.”

The frown grows more pronounced, and the crease between her eyebrows deepens. She says nothing, though.

During the tense silence that follows his joke, Jeff finds himself desperate to do anything to make that look go away. He could blame it on the scotch, but he knows better—when it comes to Annie, he always finds himself more willing to tell her the truth, more willing to make himself vulnerable, than usual.

“At least this doesn’t feel weird.” When she quirks an eyebrow at him, not following, he continues. “Being with you. There’s no weird-that-it’s-not-weirder feeling. It’s just easy. Like always.”

That does the trick. Her eyes soften and she grins, wide and disarming.

“Like always,” she agrees.

###

“Did a group of scary people just show up at your door to deliver some blue robes?” Annie asks Jeff when he answers the phone.

“Uh, yeah, actually. I take it you got a similar visit?”

“Yeah, and I feel like a should take a shower or put in some volunteer time at a soup kitchen or something.” 

“You really think that’d make you feel better?” he asks, tucking his cell between his shoulder and ear so he can toss the robes in question onto his counter and grab a beer out of the fridge.

“Maybe,” she says, and he can practically hear her shudder. “I don’t know. I just feel like I should be doing something beneficial for the universe to combat the presence of those…creeps.”

“Yeah, because your constant crusade to save Greendale isn’t enough,” he says, settling back on his couch.

Her responding sigh sounds both annoyed and pleased and Jeff grins despite himself.

“That’s different. That’s just as much for me as it is for any other potential Greendale student. I feel like I should do something altruistic.”

“Altruism is a fairy tale, Annie. A myth. It doesn’t exist, not really.”

She huffs. “Of course _you_ think that.”

“I _know_ that. Look no further than your current situation. You think doing something good for other people will somehow assuage your guilt. You’re not just trying to make the universe better for the sake of a better universe. You want to, I don’t know, even a score or balance the scales or something.”

He’s not saying it to be mean. It’s simply something that’s been on his mind a lot the past couple days—making up for the past. But he can tell by her silence that he’s touched a nerve.

“Sorry. Look, I didn’t mean—”

She cuts him off. “You’re right. We should have been more involved, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot since we—well. You know.”

Jeff takes a swig of beer and kicks his feet up onto the coffee table. “Pierce.”

“Pierce,” Annie agrees sadly, and Jeff has to admit, the name leaves his throat feeling a little tight. “We should have looked out for him. Been better friends.”

“We were the best friends that man ever had.” 

“That doesn’t mean we couldn’t have been better,” she says, her voice quiet and brittle. “I mean, we all knew about his reformed neo-buddhism, and yet we never did anything but joke about how gullible he was.”

“This is a dangerous path, Annie. We were good enough friends, alright? Dwelling on all the things we could have—not necessarily _should_ have—done differently won’t change anything,” he says, sounding more certain than he feels.

“I should have at least called him after we returned to Greendale. Visited. Anything. I just got so swept up in the busy-ness of school… it’d been over a month since our last lunch date.”

Jeff hears the regret thick in her voice, and he has to swallow down his own grief before he can reply. “He knew,” Jeff says, “He knew how much you cared about him. He was an asshole and he always wanted more than he had. But he knew, Annie.”

There’s a sniffle on the other line, and then a shaky indrawn breath. “How could he have? We’re always telling ourselves that we did all we could for him, but is that really the case? Mostly I remember us being mean.”

“Not you, though.” They’re both surprised by the fervor in Jeff’s voice. “You always knew when to draw the line. You made sure he felt welcomed and loved. You have a knack for that, you know.”

There’s silence on the other end and he wonders for a moment if he’s come on too strong, made things weird.

He nearly laughs with relief when she says, “Thanks. I really needed to hear that.”

“I could tell,” he says, but then is quick to add. “That doesn’t mean I was just saying what you needed to hear, though. I really meant it.”

He presses the phone closer to his ear, trying to hang onto the smile in her voice when she says, “I could tell.”

###

“Thanks again for letting me and Troy crash here,” Annie says, taking a seat at Jeff’s kitchen table. Her hair is a little wavier than usual and her bright blue eyes look tired—probably from the night spent on the couch—but she’s smiling at him. “Abed doesn’t ask for a lot of alone time with Rachel, so when he does, it’s kind of a big deal.”

Jeff winces as he sets a toasted bagel in front of her. “Can we maybe not talk about Abed’s sex life before I eat? I have to survive a day of evaluations, which essentially means I have to teach with the dean leering at me from the back of the classroom. So I really need these carbs. Please let me enjoy them in peace.”

Annie laughs and spreads some garden veggie schmear, which he was sure to pick up for her when he ran to the bakery earlier that morning, on her bagel. “I never said anything about sex. You only have yourself to blame for any disturbing mental images.”

They both freeze at the thought, Jeff with a bagel halfway to his mouth and Annie with her knife poised over her plate.

When their eyes meet, they break out into laughter.

Troy comes out of the bathroom in a hurry then, letting the door crash against the wall with a jarring _bang_. “Annie, I need the car.”

She frowns, but she’s already reaching for her backpack. “Why? Is something wrong?”

Jeff cocks an eyebrow, watching Troy bounce on the balls of his feet like an excitable child.

“Abed just texted. Vicki and Starburns are having a cat-car race in the parking lot outside Alternate Science Hall. If I leave now I could probably still catch it.”

Annie stops rooting around for the keys. “Are you serious?”

“I wouldn’t joke about cat-car racing!”

She rolls her eyes, and Troy pouts out his lower lip in response.

With a weary sigh, Annie turns to Jeff and asks, “Would you be able drive me to campus?”

“Yeah, sure.” 

She turns back to Troy and points a stern finger at him. “You promise you won’t speed?”

“Uh, there’s no point watching a cat- car race from the middle, Annie,” he says with a chuckle, like he can’t believe she’d even suggest such a thing.

“I’m not giving you the keys until you promise.”

Troy’s full-on squirming now. “Okay, yes! I promise! But I need to leave _now_.”

He practically sprints out of the apartment after she tosses him the keys.

“You have insurance, right?” Jeff asks, raising his eyebrows.

“Probably not enough,” she says, and takes a huge bite of her bagel.

They hurry through breakfast, Annie anxiously checking her phone every thirty seconds, and then grab their bags before heading for Jeff’s car.

In the elevator, Jeff pulls out his own phone, opening Twitter to get in a minute of mindless scrolling before the day really begins. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Annie shifting her shoulders and smoothing down her blouse—a conservative top with lots of ruffles and a floral pattern in muted colors that strikes him as very un-Annie-like.

She’s so fidgety that by the time they reach the ground floor, Jeff’s openly watching her fix the collar and button the top button, only to undo it a second later.

“Laundry day?” he asks casually, stepping out ahead of her so he can lead them to the car.

“Hmm?”

“You seem uncomfortable.”

“Oh,” she says, glancing down at her outfit. “No, this is…I have a presentation in my Soil Science class. I wanted to look professional.”

Jeff’s glad they reach the Lexus then, because he really doesn’t know what to say to that. Now that he’s got Annie on the topic, though, she doesn’t seem keen to let it drop.

“You don’t like it?” she asks as he backs out of the parking spot.

“I didn’t say that.”

She scoffs. “That is such a weak deflection.”

He keeps his eyes trained on the road. “Since when does it matter whether I like your clothes or not? All that matters is that _you_ like them.”

She harrumphs and turns away from him, looking out the window.

“ _Do_ you like that top?” he asks after a second.

“I don’t know. I guess I thought…it makes me look like Leslie Knope a little bit.”

If Jeff had been drinking something, he would’ve definitely done a spittake. 

“And that’s something you want?” he asks carefully.

Annie’s quiet for a long time, and when he hits a red light and glances over to make sure she’s still with him, Jeff notices her cheeks are red. She looks up from her lap and catches his gaze, the blush darkening just a little.

“People take her seriously,” she says.

Jeff raises his eyebrows before turning his attention back to the road.

She sighs and continues, “So long as I’m back at Greendale, I want to really commit to making changes. Old Annie gave up on her dreams just because she’d made a commitment to Hospital Administration. She was a child who didn’t know what she wanted and ended up in a crappy job she didn’t like purely because she thought she had to stay the course. I want New Annie to be self-assured, and I want her to stop playing at being an adult. I want to actually _be_ an adult…you know?”

Her voice is so small and unsure that Jeff has to resist the urge to pull over just so he can give her a hug. He’s better off comforting her with words, anyway.

“First of all, very few adults knows what they really want. Sometimes people go out into the world with a degree they worked hard for, and find they hate everything about their chosen field. It happens, and the fact that it happened to you doesn’t make you any less of an adult. Secondly, following through on your commitments isn’t a bad thing. It’s part of what makes you, well, _you_.”

She hums in response. “I guess.”

“Well, I _know_ ,” he says. “And by the way, you’ve been supporting yourself for more than five years now. _Of course_ you’re an actual fucking adult. You’re practically the only adult I know with her shit together.”

She laughs at that. “Come on, that’s not true.”

“Name one of our friends who’s more self-sufficient and mature than you.”

“Well, there’s Shirley.”

“Nope, doesn’t count,” Jeff says, pulling into the faculty parking lot.

“What? Why wouldn’t Shirley count?”

“She has kids,” he says matter-of-factly. “That puts her in a whole different category of responsibility. Just trust me on this, okay?”

He puts the car in park and looks over at her. She’s smiling, tentative but warm.

“Fine, I trust you.”

He nods, satisfied. When she moves to get out of the car, though, he stops her with a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Hey, Annie?”

She turns back to him. “Yeah?”

“Everyone took Ann Perkins seriously, too. And Donna, for that matter. You don’t have to wear boring clothes to be seen as a serious person..”

Annie considers that for a moment, then grins slyly, suddenly cheerful. “You love Parks and Rec!”

Jeff snatches his hand back and groans. “I’m never giving you a pep talk again.”

###

Jeff doesn’t know how it happened, exactly, but somehow he ends up hosting a birthday party for Annie at his place.

Sure, he’s the one who suggested they throw it, but he didn’t mean _in his apartment_. He wonders idly if he could get in trouble for having so many drunk students in his home. He’s pretty sure most of them are over 21….

“Party’s moving to The Vatican!” Britta shouts way louder than necessary considering there are only about thirty people in the room. “Last one there has to buy a round of shots!”

“How much do you want to bet that it ends up being Britta?” Annie asks, coming to stand next to Jeff as everyone else stampedes the door.

“I’d put my Lexus on it,” he says, smiling down at her. “But you shouldn’t give her too much of a head start. That’s tempting fate.”

“Oh, I’m way too beat. My party train stops here. Besides, it looks like you could use some help cleaning up.”

They both glance around the now-deserted apartment, and Jeff resists the urge to burst into tears over the mess.

Still, he says, “Annie, it’s your birthday. You can’t help with the cleanup on your own damn birthday.”

“Watch me,” she says, a challenge in her voice, and moves toward the kitchen where she retrieves a trash bag from under the sink.

Jeff knows he should try to argue, but he’s pretty sure he’d lose no matter what. Shaking his head, he joins her in the kitchen and starts putting away the food.

They work in companionable silence for a while. Annie collects all the discarded paper plates and napkins. Jeff sweeps the floor. She wipes down the counters and the tables. He packages up some leftover pizza and veggies for her to take home.

It only takes them an hour to get everything in decent shape. When Annie returns from taking out the trash and recycling, he has a beer open and ready for her.

She joins him on the couch.

“So how was it?” Jeff asks. “In the hierarchy of birthdays, I mean.”

She contemplates this, taking a sip of the beer. “Somewhere in the middle, probably.”

He gapes at her, mock-offended.

“Oh please,” she says, nudging his shoulder. “Don’t act like you care. You didn’t even want to throw me the party.”

“Hey now, I wanted you to have a party, I just didn’t want to be the one to organize it. Or host it.”

“Yeah, well, it showed. The decorations alone.”

“What’s wrong with my decorations?”

“How about the fact that they’re nonexistent.” She gestures around the living room. “And don’t even get me started on the guest list.”

“Come on! I hung up Christmas lights. And all your friends were here.”

“Plus Chang.”

“You know how hard it is to make plans without him finding out about them and then showing up whether or not you actually invite him. I figured I might as well skip the part where he glared at me for days and issued unsettling threats until I gave in,” he says defensively. “Cut me some slack here.”

She grins. “It was a lovely party. Thank you.”

Jeff tries to hide his pleased smile by taking a swig from his bottle.

“How about this? I’ll agree to host your party next year so long as you do all the actual planning. You get the party you want, I can take credit for how awesome it is, and we both avoid another critique of my hosting abilities.”

“Oh, but I’m having so much fun giving you hell,” she says, her eyes glinting mischievously.

“I’ll throw in a free birthday lunch.”

Annie holds out her hand. “You have yourself a deal.”

They’re both quiet for a minute after shaking on it, and Jeff sneaks a glance at Annie. She looks beautiful in her party dress—a green, velvety wrap with an enticing neckline—and with her hair down, soft curls tumbling over her shoulders. She looks _happy_ , and his breath catches for a second when he realizes how much of an effect that has on his own mood.

Before he can think better of it, he’s saying, “I’m really lucky you’re in my life, you know that? I’m, uh, glad you crashed my fake study group five years ago.”

She looks over at him, a surprised smile on her face, and her eyes sparkle, reflecting the multicolored lights Jeff’s strung up around his apartment.

“I’m glad you guys kept me around.”

He nods and then offers his beer bottle. She taps her own against it with a soft _clink_ and then they both take a drink.

Jeff watches her closely after setting his empty beer aside, tipsy and unabashed. When she catches him looking, she smiles, and he holds her gaze for as long as she’ll let him. 

Eventually, her cheeks flush and she ducks her head. He keeps smiling at her, though, thinking of parallel timelines that definitely don’t exist.

But if they did, he’s pretty sure this one would be the brightest.

###

“Oh, good, you’re still here!” Annie stops in the doorway to Jeff’s office, a couple of thick binders in her arms. “The night janitor started cleaning the study room, and that was definitely my cue to relocate.”

Jeff caps his red pen and gestures to the chair in front of his desk. “What’s got you here so late?”

She looks at him as if he’s just sprouted a second nose on his forehead. “The school year is coming to an end.”

“Yeah, and?”

“And there’s still so much to be done!” she says, dropping the binders on his desk with a heavy _thunk_. “We have to finalize the end-of-year-dance’s theme, complete the last twenty tasks on my Save Greendale checklist, and then finals and getting the school ready for summer. Plus, the rumor mill’s been rumbling and there’s a good chance the school board’s ordered an appraisal of Greendale, so we’ll have an official report of how well we’ve done saving the school—”

“Okay, breathe,” Jeff commands, getting more worried the redder her face gets.

She does as she’s told, sucking in a deep breath, and finally sitting down.

“So,” she starts, opening up one of the binders, “what’s keeping you at Greendale after hours?”

“Well, it turns out that if you give students assignments, they’ll eventually want them back. Graded.”

“Who would have guessed?” Annie teases, raising her eyebrows at him.

“Honestly.”

After hesitating, she asks, “But you don’t mind it? Teaching?”

Jeff shrugs. “It’s grown on me.”

They both go back to work, then. As soon as Jeff finds his focus, though, Annie clears her throat.

“Can I ask you a question?”

He looks up from the paper he’s trying to read.

“Do you think this is all gonna pay off someday?”

His brow furrows. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Annie sighs and fiddles with the rings of her open binder, “Do you think coming back to Greendale is going to be worth it, in the end?”

“I still don’t understand,” he says gently, studying her face.

She nods and then looks up at him. “I guess I’m just worried that all the work I put in here won’t mean anything _out there_. I’ve always tried to believe that if I apply myself and work hard, that everything I want will just fall into place. But then again…I’m a recovering drug addict who went to a community college, graduated, then went _back_ to the same community college. Am I ever going to rise above that?”

Jeff can only imagine the face he’s making by the time she’s finished.

She winces apologetically. “Sorry, I’ve had a lot on my mind lately.”

“No kidding.”

When he doesn’t say anything else, she frowns. “You’re avoiding the question.”

“What? No, I’m just thinking up ways to humiliate whoever told you that you aren’t good enough to do whatever the hell you want.”

Annie laughs once, but it’s not a happy sound. “Come on, Jeff. No one had to tell me. It’s just…I know better by now than to think all my plans are gonna work just because I want them to.”

“Was it Professor Harrington? That guy’s always given me the creeps, hanging out in the dissection lab twenty-four-seven. We could probably set up some kind of accident in there.”

“Seriously? Could you please stop plotting some imaginary person’s annihilation? No one _did_ this to me.”

“Then where is this coming from? It’s really not like you to doubt yourself.”

She frowns at her lap. “End-of-the-year blues, I guess.”

Jeff gets up from his chair and walks around his desk so he can crouch in front of her.

She tries to avoid his stare but breaks when he puts a gentle hand on her knee.

“Annie, you are the brightest and most determined person I know. Even if nothing goes according to your plan after you graduate, you’ll make a new plan and adjust. Because you don’t give up.”

A tear rolls down her cheek and she wipes it away, staying silent.

“Would it help if I remind you that you wouldn’t have to adjust on your own? The group…me…we’re always gonna be here for you.”

She nods and offers him a weak smile. “You’re right. I, um, thank you.”

He kisses her forehead and stands.

They go back to work after that, but Jeff’s left with a weight in his stomach: the dreadful, nagging feeling that he should be able to offer more, but doesn’t have anything else worth giving her.

###

“ _In theory, a blast of human passion could shock the mainframe into a cold start_.”

Jeff feels totally fucking blindsided by how totally fucking blindsided he feels.

No, wait, that’s not quite right…he wouldn’t have volunteered if he hadn’t felt, somewhere deep down, that he had a chance of opening the door.

The memory of Annie’s expression when she’d caught him staring directly at her blooms in his mind, the details standing out in high definition. From her rapid, surprised blinking to the way her cheeks had turned a rosy pink, it’s burned into his brain.

Damn, he’s an idiot for not figuring this out sooner. Truly.

He scans the cafeteria, looking for her in the midst of the celebration. His eyes pass over Troy and Abed doing some kind of weird jig, and Duncan longingly staring at Britta while she chats animatedly with Shirley, before he spots her.

She’s standing in front of a booth, gesturing emphatically. He can’t see her face from where he’s standing, but he can see Chang hunched sullenly over the table. She’s probably berating him for his betrayal.

He grins, feeling a strange kind of warmth in his chest, and walks over to them.

“…completely irresponsible! You could have cost this school everything! Do you ever think about the consequences of your actions before you go and do whatever the hell you want? No, don’t answer that.”

He slides onto the bench across from Chang.

“Hey look, it’s our buddy Jeff,” Chang says as soon as he sees him.

Annie glances over, but she keeps her face carefully neutral.

“Not gonna work, man,” Jeff says, shaking his head at Chang. Then he lowers his voice and turns to Annie. “Whenever you’re finished here, I’d like to talk to you.”

She frowns and glares at Chang for a long minute, clearly torn. Finally, she looks him in the eye. There’s a guarded curiosity there.

“I don’t think I’m getting through anyway, so I’m all yours. Er, I mean….” She fumbles for something else to say, and Jeff tries not to laugh.

“The study room should be free,” he says.

“Yeah, sure.”

They walk there in awkward, charged silence. He can feel Annie sneaking glances at him while he employs all his willpower to keep from openly staring back.

“Quite the day, huh?” she says when the finally reach the room. She slides onto the table and crosses one leg over the other, watching him expectantly.

“Unforgettable,” he agrees, and then starts pacing.

Apparently Annie can’t take the quiet because after a couple strained seconds, she starts rambling. “It’s not like anyone ever expects to find buried treasure, right? Abed is going to be talking about this for years. Duncan’s electrocution, Troy finding the hidden wing of the school with his air conditioning expertise. It was a true adventure. And that’s all before we almost got trapped under Greendale with the school’s founder, who, by the way, looks a bit like a walking corpse, am I right? I mean—”

“It was you,” Jeff blurts out unceremoniously. Nothing smoother is coming to mind and he really needs her to stop babbling, so why not just go with it? “You opened the door. You probably guessed that by now, but I don’t want it to go unspoken, you know?”

When Annie doesn’t say anything, he repeats it: “It was you.”

She swallows hard. “Are you sure? The rest of the group was there, after all. It could have been everyone, right?”

He gives her an unimpressed look, and takes a deep breath, trying to hold off the impending freak-out he suddenly feels closing in on him. “I’m sure, yeah. Just you.”

She opens her mouth as if to speak, but no sound comes out.

Was this a mistake? There’s definitely been something between them in the past, but maybe she’s moved on. He wouldn’t exactly blame her. He’s been jerking her around, trivializing her feelings for a long time, he realizes that now.

“Okay, well,” he says. His voice is ragged and his skin suddenly feels too tight. “I just thought you should know, and now you do so…bye.”

“Jeff, wait!” Annie says as he reaches the door. “I’m not saying…this is just a lot to process, okay?”

He takes a deep breath, then turns back to face her. “Tell me about it.”

She smiles then, shaky but radiant, and Jeff smiles back, the band around his chest easing a little.

“I’m not really sure what this means,” she says. “What you want it to mean.”

He nods, considering. It only takes him a second to make up his mind. 

“I don’t think we need to know _exactly_ what it means tonight, but here are some things I do know: you’re my best friend, Annie. I can always tell you what I’m feeling, and I never feel ashamed after I do. This is fucking cheesy, but when you’re happy, it makes me happy; when you’re sad, it makes me sad, and makes me want to make it better for you. Knowing you helps me understand why people write thousands of shitty romance novels and movie after movie about idiots falling in love because, honestly, sometimes being around you feels like I’ve been dropped in the middle of a fucking poem.”

She laughs, and Jeff can see tears glistening in her eyes.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is I love you. I probably should have realized sooner, but I’m here now and I love you. So. Say something, please… before I run screaming from this room.”

Annie rolls her eyes at him and then slides off the table. “Love, huh?”

Jeff nods. “Pretty sure.” 

She’s walking toward him impossibly slow. “And you’re not freaking out about it?”

“Oh no, I am,” he assures her. “But it’s the good kind of freaking out.”

She bites her lip and stops right in front of him. “So.”

“Yes?”

She looks up at him from under her lashes, and Jeff swears his heart stops beating for a full five seconds. “You have a Hello Kitty notebook somewhere filled with poems about me, don’t you?”

He doesn’t even dignify that with a response. Instead, he leans down and kisses her.

He hears her answer to his confession in the way she kisses him back.


End file.
